System and method for OFDM symbol interleaving

Abstract

An orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter that includes an encoder, an interleaver, a symbol processor; and a transmission module; wherein the encoder is configured to encode a superframe to provide an encoded superframe; wherein the encoded superframe comprises a sequence of encoded frames; wherein the interleaver is configured to allocate multiple frequency sub-bands to each encoded frame of the encoded superframe by assigning adjacent frequency sub-bands to successive symbols of each encoded frame; wherein the symbol processor is configured to generate, for each encoded frame and according to the assignment of the multiple frequency sub-bands, an intermediate set of symbols; and wherein the transmission module is configured to transmit simultaneously, for each encoded frame, OFDM symbols that represents the intermediate set of symbols.

We claim: 
     
       1. An orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver, comprising: a decoder, a de-interleaver, a symbol processor, and a reception module; wherein the reception module is constructed and arranged to receive OFDM symbols representative of an encoded superframe that comprises multiple encoded frames; wherein the symbol processor is constructed and arranged to generate, in response to OFDM symbols associated with each encoded frame, all received symbols that are associated with the encoded frame; wherein adjacent symbols of each encoded frame are represented by OFDM symbols that belong to adjacent sub-bands; wherein the de-interleaver is constructed and arranged to de-interleave all received symbols that are associated with each encoded frame to provide the encoded superframe; and wherein the decoder is constructed and arranged to decode the encoded superframe to provide a decoded superframe. 
     
     
       2. The OFDM receiver according to  claim 1  wherein the reception module comprises an optical to electrical converter, an analog to digital converter, synchronizer and cyclic prefix drop and serial to parallel converter, a Fast Fourier Transform converter, a single tap equalizer, multiple Inverse Fast Fourier Transform unit converters, multiple Multi-symbol Differential Detection modules and a parallel to serial converter. 
     
     
       3. A method for receiving orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, comprising receiving OFDM symbols representative of an encoded superframe that may include multiple encoded frames; generating, in response to OFDM symbols associated with each encoded frame, all received symbols that are associated with the encoded frame; wherein adjacent symbols of each encoded frame are represented by OFDM symbols that belong to adjacent sub-bands; de-interleaving all received symbols that are associated with each encoded frame to provide the encoded superframe; and decoding the encoded superframe to provide a decoded superframe.